


Albus Dumbledore's Big Mistake

by shineyma



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Child Abuse, F/M, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Pureblood Politics (Harry Potter), Revenge, Wrong Boy-Who-Lived (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26177908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: On September 17, 1986, Albus Dumbledore made three very large mistakes.In which Lily and James Potter are horrified to remember that they've forgotten their son.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 37
Kudos: 893





	Albus Dumbledore's Big Mistake

**Author's Note:**

> Ta-da! WEEK THIRTY FIVE, Y'ALL!!!! If you feel like you missed week thirty-four, that's because I posted a nothing drabble on tumblr at like 10pm last Saturday after trying and failing all day to write this fic. I'm very pleased to have managed to finish it this week.
> 
> Warnings herein for referenced child abuse, trope-y fanon-inspired Wizengamot proceedings, and a distinct lack of Britpicking. Proceed if you dare.
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review! <3

On September 17, 1986, Albus Dumbledore made three very large mistakes.

_The **first** mistake: taking several hasty actions without pausing to plan._

For this first mistake, we cannot entirely blame Mr. Dumbledore. He had _had_ a plan, you see. It was quite a clever one, too—complex, many-layered, intricate and far-reaching. It was utterly lacking in empathy, as all good Master Plans are, and had enough twists and turns to keep even the most cunning of his enemies guessing. It would have worked beautifully…had it not been thoroughly ruined by a particularly public bit of accidental magic on the part of one Harry Potter.

(Well, accidental magic and the gossiping tongue of a wizard named Steven Holland, but we’ll get to that.)

_The **second** mistake: failing to consider how betrayal changes a person_.

On October 31, 1981, James and Lily Potter had come very close to losing their lives—and, more importantly, their _son’s_ life—to treachery from a dear and trusted friend. They had trusted that friend with everything they had without so much as a second thought, and the near-disastrous results of that unthinking faith had left them deeply, deeply shaken.

That sort of thing leaves a mark on a person, you know. The Potters had determined never to be so vulnerable again and, in aid of that resolution, had taken several steps to protect themselves from further betrayal.

Unfortunately, Dumbledore was quite unaware of those steps. Even if he’d had time to plan, he wouldn’t have taken them into account.

_The **third** (and most damning) mistake: overconfidence._

It was this overconfidence that led his hasty actions to disaster. You see, after several decades of unchecked power, Albus Dumbledore had rather bought into all the fuss about his own brilliance.

As such, he didn’t wait around to see whether the layers of compulsion charms he attempted to layer over the Potters during afternoon tea actually _took_. Poor Dumbledore had many more people to spell and not that many more hours to spell them in, after all, and saw no reason to waste precious seconds on verifying his own all-but-guaranteed success.

And so, he simply stripped the Potters of years-old Obliviations, slapped some compulsion charms in their place, and excused himself the moment he was done.

As mistakes go, that hasty exit was…historic.

xxx

The kitchen Floo flared with Albus Dumbledore’s departure.

Lily Potter calmly drew her wand and shattered a teacup.

“That _manipulative old bastard_ ,” she hissed.

Her husband, James, would have been amused by her language in any other circumstance—he had, after all, spent the last six years being scolded for his own on a regular basis. As it was, he was too busy trying not to be physically ill to make note of his wife’s swearing.

He had to take several slow, careful breaths before he could trust himself to speak. “Lily…where the hell is our son?”

“I don’t know.” Lily shattered another teacup. “But I’m going to find him. _Immediately_.”

This was quite in contrary to what Albus Dumbledore had just attempted to compel them to do, of course. Fortunately for the Potters (and their missing son), Lily and James were both well protected from that sort of mind-altering magic.

It was only too bad they hadn’t taken such precautions _before_ Albus Bloody Dumbledore Obliviated them of all knowledge of the fact they had _twins_.

“Good.” James took a long drink of his stone-cold tea, wishing distantly that it was something stronger. Rather more closely, he wished he had poisoned Dumbledore’s cup. “While you do that, I’ll…try to explain to Jimmy.”

Perhaps Lily would have offered to help with that—her heart already ached for her boys, for poor Harry who had been unwillingly abandoned and for poor Jimmy who would be so confused—but before she could, an awful realization clicked into place.

She closed her eyes. “His nightmares.”

“Fuck,” her husband said, very quietly, and shoved away from the table. “The twin bond.”

Ever since the night he turned Voldemort’s curse back on its caster—ever since he survived the unsurvivable—their son had been tormented by nightmares. Before he could even speak full sentences, he was sobbing in their arms about cold and lonely dark places, about fear, about _pain_.

Lily and James had always assumed those nightmares were the result of what he’d been through. Now that they knew—now that they _remembered_ —that Jimmy had a twin, a new and terrifying possibility presented itself.

Magical twins often had magical bonds: empathic and mental links, keeping them connected no matter the distance between them. If all that pain and fear was coming from Harry…

“I’m going to find him,” Lily said again, and shattered one last teacup. “And you, James Potter, are going to _destroy_ Albus Dumbledore.”

“Too bloody right, I am,” he snapped.

He would start with the Wizengamot…but first, he needed to talk to Jimmy.

xxx

Predictably, the conversation with Jimmy didn’t go well at all. He was only six years old, after all, and had always looked up to Dumbledore as a sort of surrogate grandfather. Learning that the man had, for some unknowable and _unforgivable_ reason, stolen his twin brother was heartbreaking.

Still, Jimmy was a child—a child who’d grown up loved and treasured by his parents. For all that he’d defeated a Dark Lord as a baby, he was a remarkably innocent, trusting child. Reassured that they would find his brother and bring him home, he paid little more mind to the hows and whys of the situation. Once he’d cried himself out and been promised Harry would be home soon, he raced off to his room to get it ready for sharing.

(That Potter Manor had any number of empty bedrooms waiting to be filled was irrelevant. Jimmy had missed five years with his twin; as soon as he made it home, Jimmy wouldn’t be letting him out of his _sight_.)

The conversation was rather harder for his father, who had much less confidence in the guarantee of a happily ever after, especially when it came to kidnapped children. As soon as he made sure Jimmy was settled happily in his room, choosing which toy to first introduce to Harry, James retreated to his study for a drink. Or two.

In fact, he might have been tempted to down the whole bottle (his son, his _son_ was missing, baby Harry, who had Lily’s eyes and whose first word had been _snitch_ (or at least as close to it as a baby could get), who cried when separated from his brother and loved nothing more than chasing their cat around the cottage), were he not interrupted before he got the chance.

Two sips into a large glass of firewhiskey, his communication mirror lit up urgently.

“Padfoot,” he said—once to activate the connection, and then again when he saw how pale and sick his best friend looked. “I take it you’ve had a visit from Dumbledore.”

Sirius’ expression hardened at his words, horror quickly overtaken by fury.

“You too?” he asked.

James grunted in affirmation and took a deeper pull of his firewhiskey. The magical flame it put in his belly—the fire that gave the alcohol its name—stood no chance against his own anger.

“He stole my son,” he said, “and made us forget he’d ever existed.”

The growl Sirius let out was uncannily similar to that of his Animagus form.

“Where’d he put him?” he demanded. “Who has him?”

“Lily’s on it.” James set his glass heavily aside, more for the sake of doing something than because he was at all inclined to stop drinking. “Wherever he is, Dumbledore tried to use compulsion charms to convince us to leave him there.”

“Bastard,” Sirius said forcefully. “He tried to compel me to think Harry was a threat to Jimmy.”

If James were still holding his glass, he likely would have broken it at that. “What? _Why_?”

What was the old man’s game? Why steal Harry, why make them forget him, why _any_ of this? All these years, James had been loyal to Dumbledore—had trusted and believed in him, had supported him politically, had followed him in the war.

Why in Merlin’s bloody name would Dumbledore repay that trust with child abduction?

“Better question,” Sirius said, “why now?”

…That _was_ a good question.

“He’s made us forget Harry for five years,” James mused. “Why let us remember now? Why Obliviate us at all instead of compelling us in the first place?”

“Something’s changed,” Sirius said. “He needs us to remember Harry—and want him far away.”

“He’ll have to live with disappointment,” James said. Taking a cue from his wife, he conjured up a teacup solely for the pleasure of breaking it. “As soon as Lily finds him, we’re bringing him home.”

“Too bloody right,” Sirius agreed, and cracked his neck. “What can I do, Prongs?”

James didn’t even have to think about it. “Find out what changed. It might give us a clue to what Dumbledore’s after.”

“Consider it done,” Sirius promised, and cut their connection.

No words of reassurance between them and no comfort offered, but James felt better nonetheless. He always did, with Padfoot at his back.

They would find Harry, they would bring him home, and Albus Dumbledore would _pay_.

xxx

As James made moves to punish Dumbledore, Lily searched for Harry and Sirius searched for answers. One, unfortunately, was far more successful than the other.

Every tracking charm Lily tried failed. Again and again she tried—light magic, dark magic, blood magic, runic magic, ancient rituals, spells legal and not, with focuses narrow and wide, and every time, she failed. Every time, they returned the same results: Potter Manor, where Lily and Jimmy lived, and a neighborhood in Surrey that Lily’s sister, Petunia, called home.

There were no other results. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t find Harry.

Sirius had far more luck. As Chief Auror, the logical place for him to start his search for answers was at the Ministry of Magic—and the Ministry of Magic was precisely where answers were to be found.

The story, as it were, went like this:

On the morning of September 17, the children at the primary school in Little Whinging, Surrey were gathered on the playground to enjoy some fresh air before class when, in a turn of misfortune, a passing motorist had a stroke. He lost consciousness, and control of his vehicle with it.

As other drivers and those on the playground watched in helpless horror, the minivan headed straight for the playground. A tragedy seemed assured—

—until, quite inexplicably, the minivan turned into a giant pillow. It rolled once, twice, and a third time before getting caught on the curb and flopping to a stop. The unfortunate stroke victim rolled off the top and onto the pavement, and all the Muggles—teachers, students, and passing strangers—stared.

This was where Steven Holland came in.

Steven Holland was a member of the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, those brave witches and wizards who monitor the Muggle world and deal with any particularly obvious signs of accidental magic. Through their tireless work, the world is protected from careless reveal to the classmates and teachers of every muggleborn child in Britain.

Of course, Steven Holland was one of several squad members called to the scene of this very public accidental magic. He was notable, however, as the one who actually dealt with the muggleborn child in question: a child who looked less like a muggleborn and more like an _identical copy_ of the Boy-Who-Lived. An identical copy with the surname Potter, no less!

Naturally, Steven had rushed back to the Ministry to share this fascinating encounter with his best mate, Jacobus Perkins, who worked in Experimental Charms. Jacobus Perkins passed on word to his girlfriend, Camellia Hawkins, who in turn told her sister Marigold all about it.

By lunchtime, half the Ministry had heard of this unknown Potter child and his impressively powerful (transfiguration! At his age!) accidental magic—to the displeasure of one Albus Dumbledore, whose intricate plan was thoroughly ruined by this public knowledge.

Now, Sirius couldn’t know this, of course, but dear reader, _you_ might as well: Dumbledore had always intended to reverse the Obliviations. He could hardly have Harry Potter show up at Hogwarts without the boy’s parents knowing who he was, after all!

But the Obliviations were meant to be removed the summer before his first year, not when he was six years old. Compulsions have their limitations, you see, and the more complex they are, the weaker they become. Easier to have the world forget Harry entirely than to have the Boy-Who-Lived’s biographers wondering at his twin’s absence, or for the Potters to be wanting to send their second son a Christmas present, or for Sirius Black to think he ought to drop by and teach his Muggle-raised godson about Quidditch. If they’d known about Harry, every passing whim related to him would have had to be compelled away, and eventually the whole house of cards would have collapsed.

No, it was better for everyone if Harry was forgotten, and so Dumbledore had Obliviated everyone. Not just the Potters, not just Sirius Black— _everyone_. The mediwitch who delivered the twins. The assorted members of the Order of the Phoenix. The Aurors who’d been on site the night Voldemort was defeated. _Everyone_.

It was the best course of action at the time, but it had come back to bite poor Dumbledore now. Because with rumors of another Potter child making the rounds—and with as fast as gossip spread, far faster than Dumbledore could swoop in with a few new _Obliviate_ s—people would be asking _questions_. And it wouldn’t do for the mediwitch who delivered the boys to assure people Jimmy was an only child, only for his twin to show up on September 1, 1991!

Dumbledore was backed into a corner. He had no choice but to reverse the Obliviations and let everyone remember that there was a second child—to use hastily devised layers of compulsion to get his plans back on track—and that was what led to his three very large mistakes, as previously discussed.

But again, Sirius knew nothing of this, and could hardly tell the Potters. All he could tell the Potters was that Harry had performed some very powerful accidental magic in a Muggle neighborhood in Surrey, and the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad had gone and told half of Britain about it.

That, as it happened, was quite enough.

xxx

“Muggle Surrey?” Lily echoed weakly, absently waving off her worriedly hovering husband. She had given him a start by sitting down quite abruptly in the middle of Sirius’ recitation of facts, but had no time to reassure him. “You’re positive, Sirius?”

Confused by her sudden pallor, Sirius nonetheless nodded. “Absolutely. The records don’t get more detailed than that, but they were clear. Surrey.”

Lily felt ill. All the days she’d wasted, the spells she’d poured over—so much time lost because she’d missed the _absolutely bloody obvious_.

The tracking spells weren’t highlighting Surrey because they’d mistakenly latched onto Petunia. They were highlighting Surrey because _Petunia had Lily’s son_.

With a vicious curse and with _out_ bothering to fill in James or Sirius, Lily stood and Disapparated.

She landed in a Muggle house. She’d never seen it before—she and Petunia were on poor terms, to put it mildly—but she recognized her sister’s taste in the ugly, striped wallpaper and her sister’s thin face in the nearest photograph.

None of the photographs included Harry, but she was sure she was right. Harry was here, being raised by her own sister. Why said sister had never bothered to so much as scrawl a _come get your child_ on the Christmas card she returned unopened every year would bear investigation—but for now, Lily was far more concerned with finding her kidnapped son than finding answers.

Down the hall, behind a closed door, she could hear the sound of a television. She’d landed next to a staircase, which presumably led to the house’s bedrooms. Either direction would have been reasonable to take in search of Harry, and yet…

Later, she’d never be able to say what drew her attention to the cupboard under the stairs. Perhaps it was the incongruity of the lock on the door. Perhaps it was some form of maternal magic. Perhaps it was even the lingering influence of the countless tracking spells she’d used, reaching out to say “ _here_ , you stupid woman!”

Whatever the reason, her eyes were pulled to the cupboard. Without pause, without hesitation, as though she’d meant to do it all along, Lily unlocked and opened the cupboard door.

Inside, curled up on a tiny crib mattress, clutching a tattered blanket, she found her son.

In the _cupboard_. The _locked_ cupboard.

Lily was going to _murder her sister_.

Petunia would keep, however, and in the meantime, Harry was clearly frightened. A few deep breaths, a lightning-quick Occlumency exercise, and Lily shoved every last drop of fury into a box in the back of her mind. After it, she stuffed her need for vengeance and the urge to cry, and then she topped it all off with the horror that came from suddenly understanding Jimmy’s fear of small spaces.

All that put away, she was able to give Harry a perfectly calm smile.

“Hello, darling,” she said. Not wanting to scare him any further by continuing to loom, she knelt just outside the cupboard door. “Do you know who I am?”

Silently, Harry shook his head.

“My name is Lily,” she said. “I’m your mummy.”

Harry’s eyes— _her_ eyes, he had her eyes the way Jimmy had James’, how could she _ever_ have forgotten?—went wide.

“My mummy’s dead,” he said, and it knocked the breath from her.

“No, love.” Determinedly, she blinked away the tears that threatened. She didn’t want her view of him obstructed for a single moment, and they’d only alarm him, in any case. “No, I’m not. I’m alive. And so is your daddy, and your brother.”

Harry chewed on his lip. He was adorable, and it broke her heart. “Don’t got a brother.”

“You do, love,” she told him. “His name is James, like your daddy, but we call him Jimmy. He’s missed you terribly. We all have.”

She hadn’t thought his eyes could get wider, but at that, they did.

“Really?” he asked, so awed it hurt.

Awed. That he was missed, that he was wanted.

“Really really,” she promised.

His eyebrows scrunched together, and at once he was so like and so _un_ like Jimmy that she wanted to cry. She had two sons and one of them was a _stranger_. She didn’t know what sort of bedtime stories he liked, whether he would call himself too old for lullabies—she didn’t even know his favorite color.

Albus Dumbledore would pay for this, she swore.

“But,” he said slowly, “why—”

Lily was braced for the question as to why he’d been left with Petunia if they loved him so much. She knew it would be coming.

She did _not_ expect him to slap his hands over his mouth and cower back against the wall before he even got three words of the question out. She turned at once, expecting to find Petunia or her brute of a husband looming behind her…but the hall was empty. Nothing had changed.

“What?” she asked, turning back to face him. “What’s wrong, darling?”

Hands firmly clasped over his mouth, Harry shook his head.

“You have questions,” she said. “It’s only natural. Please, ask.”

His hands inched down, just a little. “M’not s’posed t’ask questions.”

Lily had to close her eyes against the fury that bubbled up at his mumbled explanation. She didn’t want to frighten him, but _oh_ , when she got her hands on Petunia—

If it was even Petunia’s fault. It occurred to her, with a chilling sort of horror, that Muggles were even more vulnerable to compulsion charms than the average witch or wizard.

Would Dumbledore, having stolen Lily’s son from her through magic, then have used magic to ensure Petunia mistreated him? If so, _why_?

And was that better or worse than Petunia abusing a child of her own free will?

It was something to think about—something to investigate—but later. _After_ Harry was safely home, tucked behind the wards of Potter Manor where Dumbledore couldn’t reach him and no one would ever hurt him again.

For now…

“Well,” she said, carefully calm, “that’s a silly rule, I think. In our house, you’re welcome to ask all the questions you like. In fact, I insist.”

At that, Harry’s hands fell away from his face entirely. “Your house?”

“Yes.” She ached to reach for him but, fearing to frighten him, clasped her hands on her lap instead. “I think you were going to ask what you were doing here, weren’t you? Why you’ve been living with your Aunt Petunia instead of with us, if we love and miss you so much.”

Hesitantly, he nodded.

“A very bad man,” she said, “stole you from us and hid you here. He used magic to—”

Harry squeaked.

“Harry?” she asked.

His eyes were wide and shocked. “You said—the bad word.”

…That had better not mean what she thought it meant. “Magic?”

He flinched.

“Is that a bad word in this house, Harry?” she asked, far more calmly than she felt.

“’S not real,” he said. “Freakish nonsense.”

Even as miserable as he sounded about it, it was chilling to hear such words from her very magical son. That sort of attitude towards magic, in a magical child…the sort of self-hatred it would brew…

Lily took a deep breath. “It _is_ real, darling. Some people have it and some don’t, and I’m afraid your Aunt Petunia has always been jealous of that.”

So saying, she drew her wand and called forth a gentle blue light. Just a simple charm, but it brightened up the dreary cupboard—and, more importantly, her son’s face. Mouth slack with awe, he reached out to touch the light…and giggled.

The sound was like a hook in her heart. It brought tears to her eyes at once.

Five years. Five years since she’d held her baby boy. He’d been so happy as an infant, always giggling and reaching for the nearest person, thrilled to bounce after his brother in their little walkers.

He was a stranger to her now, as she was a stranger to him, but she suspected it had been far too long since he had cause to giggle.

“You see?” she asked, forcing her tears away. “Magic. I have it, and so do you.”

His hand fell away from the light. “I do?”

“You do,” she promised. “It’s not a bad thing, love. It’s beautiful and wonderful.”

She summoned another light—green, this time—and directed it right onto his mattress with him. He didn’t giggle, but he did smile: a small, quiet thing that ached.

“Unfortunately,” she continued, “though it isn’t a bad thing in itself, it can be _used_ for bad things, and I’m afraid it has been. An awful, evil man used magic to steal you from us and make us forget. As soon as we remembered, we started looking.”

Harry poked at the little green ball of light and said nothing.

“I’m so sorry it took so long, love,” she said, “but I came the moment I could.” She held out her hand, steady and calm, for all she wanted to snatch him right out of the cupboard. She hated this, the sight of her son tucked away like a spare coat. “Would you like to come home, Harry? Will you let me take you away from here?”

For all of the fear he’d shown, Harry barely hesitated. He scrambled past the light and took her hand almost at once, his little fingers cold in hers.

Feeling that proof of how awful the cupboard was—he was _freezing_ , and with only a tiny blanket to warm him—Lily didn’t think she’d ever in her life wanted to curse someone as badly as she did in that moment. She couldn’t imagine ever being angrier.

Then she pulled him out of the cupboard and saw him in proper light, and her fury grew by multitudes.

He was so _small_. Several inches shorter than Jimmy, and at _least_ a stone lighter. He was pale and scrawny and—and—

Malnourished. He was malnourished.

Petunia had been _starving Lily’s son_.

Only the need to get Harry home—the need not to frighten him—kept her from drawing her wand and hunting her sister down. Even if Petunia _had_ been spelled to treat him so awfully, she feared she wouldn’t have it in her to be merciful. Not looking at her poor, battered child.

But Petunia would keep, she reminded herself. Harry wouldn’t.

“May I hug you, love?” she asked, and his expression broke her heart in two.

She didn’t need to ask. She _knew_ that Petunia had never spared him a hug. Not once in the five years he’d lived here.

He was slow to move closer and slower still to carefully, uncertainly wrap his arms around her middle. When she bent to hold him properly, his breath hitched. He hid his face in her neck, but she could feel the tears against her skin.

“I’m so sorry, Harry,” she said. “You’ll never have to come back here again, I promise.”

His hands fisted in her shirt, but he didn’t answer.

“Up we go,” she said, and straightened, lifting him with her. Jimmy was getting too big to carry easily, but Harry was horribly light. (Horribly light, and yet so much heavier than the baby he’d been when last she held him. Albus Dumbledore would _pay_ for every minute of the last five years.) “This will be a bit unpleasant, I’m afraid, but it will be over quickly, and then we’ll be home. Your brother can’t wait to meet you again.”

Harry’s face was still tucked against her neck as he cried, and safe in the knowledge he couldn’t see, she took a petty sort of satisfaction in spelling the wallpaper an eye-searing shade of yellow. It wasn’t even a fraction of what she owed Petunia, but it was enough of a start: her appearance-conscious sister would be horrified to have her entry hall in such a state.

That done, and resisting the urge to do something infinitely more violent, Lily held her son close and Apparated away.

xxx

The next few days were a study in heartbreak. Harry was overwhelmed—by magic, by love, by the new family he’d gotten and how _kind_ they all were to him. Jimmy was in turns furious and sad that his twin kept flinching away. He wasn’t old enough to understand the concept of abuse, truly, but he knew that Harry had been hurt and in his childish way, he wanted vengeance.

Lily, James, and Sirius wanted vengeance, too. Desperately.

Fortunately, it was close at hand.

xxx

On September 23, the Wizengamot held their monthly meeting. It was the Autumnal Equinox, a day of special magical significance, and as such, the meeting would be a long one. Everyone expected that.

What they did _not_ expect was that Lord James Potter would be in attendance.

After all, he had only ever attended one session as an adult. The first session after his father’s death, he had appeared to accept the Potter seat, named one Dedalus Diggle his proxy (on Dumbledore’s recommendation), and then swiftly excused himself. He had never returned.

As such, when he walked through the doors seconds before they were sealed to begin the session, it caused something of a stir—with his unsuspecting proxy most of all.

“Lord Potter!” Diggle all but squeaked, shooting to his feet.

“Mr. Diggle,” James said. He was very aware the whole room was listening, and well pleased by it. Dumbledore, already settled in the Chief Warlock’s seat, appeared mildly unsettled by his attendance. “With thanks for your years of service, you are dismissed.”

Diggle looked dismayed (James fancied Dumbledore did, too), but it was a Lord’s right to name and dismiss his proxy at will. He had no choice but to bow and remove himself from the bench.

The Wizengamot was set up in a half-circle of tiered ancestral seats, taking up one half of the room. The other half of the room held the Ministry seats, the Chief Warlock’s (or Sorceress’, depending on the leader of the majority party) seat, and the public gallery.

Between the two sides was empty floor space. Diggle and James’ footsteps echoed as they passed in the middle.

“My dear boy,” Dumbledore said as James ascended to the Potter seat. “This is most unexpected.”

“Yes,” James said, forcing himself to remain calm. As much as he’d like to, he couldn’t just pull his wand and hex Dumbledore’s nose off. There’d be time for violence later; he needed to do things the right way first. “Apologies for the lack of warning, but the House of Potter has an important announcement to make. _Iure Primatus_.”

Dozens of people gasping at once made for an odd sound in an echoing room like the Wizengamot. James had to smile.

Invoking the right of primacy, a privilege James held as the Lord of an Ancient and Noble House, meant he would be the first to speak during the session. There was nothing anyone could do to prevent it—even the other Ancient and Noble Houses, if they’d been inclined to invoke it as well, would be forced to speak _after_ him.

“Acknowledged,” Dumbledore said gravely. He could do nothing else, to James’ glee.

James reached his seat, but didn’t take it. Instead, he took a deep breath and prepared himself before turning back to face the room. He needed to treat this with the gravest severity. It was no time for jokes or laughter. (Not, to be frank, that he’d felt any urge at all to laugh in the past week.)

He needed to be formal. Traditional. A Lord of the Wizengamot in _fact_ , not just name.

Slowly, deliberately, he gave Dumbledore a nod.

“Lord Potter has invoked the right of primacy,” the Chief Warlock announced (was that a bit of reluctance in his voice?). “He has the floor. The session will not begin until he surrenders it. Lord Potter.”

“My thanks, Chief Warlock,” James said. He surveyed the room, deliberately avoiding any actual eye contact with anyone. “On this day, the 23rd of September, 1986, the Most Ancient and Noble House of Potter hereby formally acknowledges a debt of gratitude to one Steven Holland, Obliviator.”

The public gallery erupted into shocked chatter. Across the floor, Dumbledore’s face went slack with shock.

James met his eyes and then, dismissively, looked away.

Dumbledore’s eyes narrowed, and James could only assume he was frantically attempting to modify whatever plans he had in place—to try to catch up to the moves James was about to make and, if possible, prevent them.

Well, James was hardly about to allow that.

“Steven Holland,” he said, loudly, rather than waiting for Dumbledore to call the room back to order, “has done a great service to the House of Potter.” Gradually, the chatter died down. No doubt the public was eager to hear his reasoning—debts of gratitude had gone out of fashion centuries ago, and the Potters weren’t known for their traditional leanings. “All of you know what my son Jimmy did on Halloween night of 1981. What you don’t know—what was somehow lost in the chaos and celebration after that night—is that Jimmy is not my only son.”

There was another, louder outburst from the crowd. Even the other members of the Wizengamot reacted. The most hardened pureblood mask was no match for an unknown potential Potter heir.

Again, the surprise was expected. There were books upon books, newspapers full of articles, that had been written about Jimmy. Not a single one mentioned Harry.

By Dumbledore’s design. James would never forget that.

“Jimmy has a twin,” he continued. “His name is Harry, and on that night, he was kidnapped—abducted, we can only assume, by some lingering follower of Voldemort’s.”

More noise, whether from the use of Voldemort’s name or the news of Harry’s kidnapping.

“For five years,” he said over the mutters, “the House of Potter has grieved our lost son. In vain, we searched for him.” A lie, of course, but Dumbledore could hardly call them on it without exposing himself. And even if he tried, it was a lie backed up with an inches-thick case file in the DMLE. Sirius had put it together and planted it in the appropriate drawer himself. “We had almost given up hope when, last week, Harry’s accidental magic drew the attention of the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad.”

Murmurs of understanding, then. It had been a week since the incident at Harry’s school, and Holland’s gossip had spread far. Many of them had heard the story of the Jimmy Potter look-alike.

“Steven Holland, in his role on the Squad, met Harry and noticed his resemblance to Jimmy. He asked questions, and those questions made their way to the House of Potter.” James took a deep breath. “I’m relieved to tell you that, thanks to those questions, Harry was located last week. He’s safe at home, recovering with his mother and his twin.”

The crowd burst into applause. Dumbledore looked as though he’d been spelled incontinent.

(Which wasn’t a bad idea.)

After a few moments, James motioned for silence. It was Dumbledore’s job as Chief Warlock to keep order—but no surprise he wasn’t bothering.

“How Harry came to be in the Muggle world,” he said, “we’ll leave for the DMLE to determine. In the meantime, again I proclaim: the House of Potter recognizes our debt of gratitude to Steven Holland. We are at his service.”

The man wasn’t in the crowd—James had checked on his way in—but magic would generate a notice and see it delivered to him, now that James had formally announced it. Whatever service Holland requested, James would be pleased to provide it. Who knew when or _if_ Dumbledore would’ve ever been moved to reverse his Obliviations, if not for him?

Speaking of Dumbledore, he seemed finally to have collected himself. He gave James a beaming smile that appeared irritatingly sincere.

“I’m so pleased to hear that, my boy,” he said in that grandfatherly way of his. James wanted to punch him. “Was that all of your business?”

“It was not,” he said. He didn’t bother to try not to enjoy the way Dumbledore’s smile went a bit tight. “To the Lords and Ladies of this august body, I tender my apologies. When I first took this seat in the wake of my father’s death, I was too busy with the war and its concerns to do it justice. After the war, I was distracted by my grief and our desperate search for Harry. I fear I haven’t given this duty—this privilege—the attention it deserves.”

The public gallery didn’t particularly react to that, but his fellow members _did_. Not blatantly, not loudly, but a strange stir moved through them. They might not know where he was going, but they knew he was going _somewhere_.

“In truth,” he continued, “I’ve paid very little mind to the business of the Wizengamot, these past five years. To my shame, I know nothing of the legislation that has moved through this body, and little and less of the votes that have been cast in my name by my honored proxy.” He bowed his head. “Again, I can only apologize.”

Dumbledore perhaps at this point realized what he was leading up to, because he started, “My dear boy—”

“Due to my inattention,” James said, loudly, over him, “I cannot say with any confidence whether my House’s current path is the correct one. As such, effective immediately, the Most Ancient and Noble House of Potter—”

“James,” Dumbledore nearly shouted.

“—formally withdraws from the Light alliance,” he announced. A sudden hush took over the room. “With apologies. I will reassess the current political climate and determine at a later date whether to renew that alliance…or to make a new one.”

There was silence in the Wizengamot. The Potters, with their sixteen votes, were a significant factor in the Light’s power. With James’ support withdrawn…the Light had just lost their majority control. So, too, had they lost any chance of passing a number of new bills that were up for consideration with the Equinox session.

Most of the Light-allied Lords and Ladies were visibly horrified. James had burned a number of bridges there, he was sure. But the only thing that mattered was that Dumbledore, their leader, looked unspeakably furious. With the loss of his party’s majority, his position was forfeit.

As of that moment, he was no longer Chief Warlock.

It was only the beginning, of course. Harry had spent years separated from his family, trapped in a hell of Dumbledore’s making, and James had years of revenge planned.

But it was a good start, and as the Wizengamot began to clamor—as Arsenia Shafiq, leader of the Neutrals, who now held the majority, stood to take her place as the new Chief Sorceress—James made deliberate eye contact with Dumbledore, and smiled.

“I surrender the floor,” he said.

Mischief fucking Managed.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic exists because, while I love a wrong!BWL fic as much as the next girl, some part of me is always dissatisfied with Lily and James' role in them. Of course, I understand how AUs work, but I just can't make myself forget that they DIED for Harry and would never just carelessly abandon him. So this is my take on that lovely trope, with James and Lily as victims, too.
> 
> (Is all my Harry Potter fic just gonna be me going through my favorite tropes and putting my own twist on them? Maybe. You can't stop me.)


End file.
